SPN-Fanfiction - the trouble with memories
by spnfanfromeurope
Summary: A stand-alone story that takes place in my "Abusive-John" verse. Trigger warnings for violence against children, bad parents, alcohol abuse. There are some swearwords. I'm a bit sick of writing Abusive!John, so I hope this story will round that line off and let me get into a less painful headspace. But who knows? I seem to have little control over what my brain decides to cook up


Emily still thought about him, once in a while.  
It had been a long time ago, but she had no trouble remembering her high school years, or the new kid who had passed into her life and back out again, briefly, like the lights of a ship passing the shore on a stormy night.

* * *

She kept gazing after him in the hallways, in the classrooms. Well, all the girls did.  
The popular, pretty girls with all their confidence in their own attractiveness would more or less sling themselves at him, and he wasn't above catching them, when they did.

Not only was he new and therefore more or less automatically interesting, oh, no, he was also tall, muscular and athletic – and he had a physical presence, a self-confidence, that seemed to be oozing out of him like an almost visible aura spreading from his body.  
He would saunter down the hallways as if he owned the place, exuding an air of arrogant disdain towards the entire school system, his bag slung casually over one shoulder, always wearing a scuffed leather jacket and usually with some girl on his arm, rarely the same one two days in a row.

He'd never looked in her direction – she never expected him to – why would he? None of the other boys did, and this one? He could pick and choose as he pleased.

That is – almost never – not until that night at the fair.

They ran into each other near the dancing tent, which had been set up in the middle of the fair grounds. The moon was high and full. The moonlight threw their long shadows onto the dirty white canvas, when he asked her if she wanted to dance.

She said she did, and he put his hand lightly on her back as they walked into the tent. The music was about to start. There was the usual ear shattering feedback whine from the sound system and the guitarist was strumming the same riff over and over.

He led her into the middle of the brown wooden floor when the music started up. His arms were warm and strong around her as they swayed to the music. He was a little cross eyed – or maybe they were just too close together?  
It was a special night. It felt like there was magic in the air. It was a night of  
new beginnings, and of endings.

He whispered in her ear. Words, which have been heard by girls in some form or another since the time before time. Stories as old as humanity itself.

After a while they moved gradually to the edges of the dance floor. Step by step, still holding each other close until they were at the side of the tent, next to the rough canvas, where the shifting dance-floor lights barely reached them.

The crowd in the tent were shouting along to a horrible rendition of "Bad Moon Rising" when he bent slowly and kissed her for the first time, almost chastely, lips closed.

It was soft and sweet, and it was her first kiss – because Toby Robinson back in sixth grade didn't count; she had decided that a long time ago. Besides he had just slobbered on her. This, this was different. Much less slobber for one thing.  
It happened so fast – his lips were there and gone, as he leaned back a little, looking into her eyes, waiting to see what she would do. Her hands responded before she had time to panic, pulling him closer and when their lips met for the second time it was neither quick nor chaste.

She had expected her first French kiss, tongues and all, to be awkward – what was one supposed to DO with one's tongue, exactly? But it wasn't. It was…amazing. The Earth shuddered under her feet and stars fell jubilantly from the sky.

She forgot everything – place, time, everything - and if he kept kissing her like that, touching her like that, with his clever fingers roaming around making her feel unexpected sensations, she would probably forget everything her mother had told her and let him do a whole lot of other things too. Things she hadn't really thought, she would ever actually want a boy to do.

But the moon had disappeared behind clouds, and the crowd was getting drunk. Turning ugly. Not that she noticed, until he suddenly lifted his head from hers, nostrils flaring, body tense.

For a moment she was reminded of a wild stag, she had seen once on a camping trip. It had been grazing in a clearing, when she came upon it and had lifted its head in alarm, ears pricked, head high, with that same air of vigilant caution. It had only been a split second before the stag had jumped between the trees and was gone, but she would always carry the picture of it in her mind.

She was pulled from the memory, when she was almost brutally grabbed and moved. She gave a little breathless squeal of surprise, but didn't have time to react any further before she found herself between the tent canvas and the stage, in a small corner of tranquility looking out on a crowd that was no longer dancing, but shoving, hitting and punching.

It was a fight scene that looked almost like something out of an old Western movie.  
One big ruckus, hard to see any sides, everyone fighting everyone. But the old Westerns her dad liked to watch forgot to show the blood, the vomit, the deafening roar of noise. And then there were the smells. The metallic tang of blood, the stench of sweaty bodies, the stink of someone's puke running down their shirtfront.

Later she would wonder about the reflexes of the boy – not only had he realized the fight was breaking out, while she was still seeing fireworks from the kissing (and other things, things she would dwell on later) – he had also found a safe spot for her and put himself between her and the fight.

The brawl drifted their way and she saw his shoulders bunch up as he prepared to throw a punch. Everything was going too fast; the change of pace made her feel dizzy, disjointed.

It had happened so quickly, going from being kissed silly, to being stuck behind a boy's back, seeing him fight, seeing him use his body and his fists as a barrier between her and a crowd turned dangerous.

He fought differently than the other people in the tent. Most of them were throwing wide punches, drunkenly swinging hands through the air – but the boy in front of her was all taut efficiency. There were no big flashy movements; he just always happened to be somewhere else than where his opponents' punches ended up.  
He shoved, punched, and a few times even kicked, with purpose and control, always in balance, always aware.  
Later the scene would run through her mind over and over and she would marvel at the athleticism that made his fighting seem almost effortless compared to the grown men he defeated.

At one point, when the crowd had thinned a little in their corner, the main fighting moving back to the center of the tent, he had reached back and grabbed her hand, starting to slide sideways along the side of the tent towards the nearest opening. He continued to put his body between her and the crowd, making her feel safe even through the fear that was coursing in her blood.

"Keep moving; we gotta get out of here," he said over his shoulder.

They had almost made it, when something changed – the crowd was split like the Red Sea as someone simply punched a hole through the bunch of shoving, fighting people, moving like a big black thundercloud towards them.  
As a large, intense man reached them, she felt the change in the body in front of her too – instead of defensively raising his fists, he let them fall to his sides, straightening his back, lifting his chin.  
The man stopped right in front of them, leaning in to shout over the din:  
"Where the hell is your brother and what are you doing here?"  
"He's safe, sir, at a friend's."  
The man grunted and said, shortly: "Follow me."  
Then he turned and simply punched his way back through the fight, the young couple scrambling to keep up.

Outside the tent they moved a safe distance away before the man spun back around and got all the way into the personal space of the younger man, who still kept her behind himself as if the threat were not over yet.

"You are supposed to take care of Sammy when I'm not around. You know that. Instead I find you brawling in a tent at the local fair? You have anything to say for yourself, you better say it now, before I get you back home!"  
"He's at the Henderson's, sir. For a sleep-over. You gave permission before you left on the -" there was a slight hesitation – "job, remember?"

The man moved his shoulders in an annoyed way and swayed a little.  
He's drunk, she realized. And he still was able to go through a fighting crowd like that.

They heard the whine of sirens closing in. The police, coming to break up the brawl.

"We better get back to the motel; we'll talk there. I don't like this attitude of yours," the man growled.  
"Dad? Sir?"  
"Yes, what?" irritation obvious in the tone.  
"Please, let me walk her home first, see her safe?"

The man blinked, looked over the boy's shoulder as if he hadn't noticed her until then.  
There was a long tense pause.  
"Well, ok, then, I'll swing by the Henderson's, make sure your brother is safe. You take her home, then get your butt back to the motel, I'm not done with you yet."

They walked hand in hand through the dark streets to her house, stopping now and again for more sweet kisses. He once again made her head spin – and she felt the remaining fear from being trapped in that dam…darn tent lift.

As they drew near her house, she asked him, "Are you going to be OK?"  
"Yeah, of course."  
"Are you sure? Your dad seemed kind of … (drunk, dangerous, deranged) uhm… mad?"  
"Yeah, yeah… it'll be fine… he'll calm down. Don't worry."

At the porch she pulled him towards her and kissed him.  
He didn't object; on the contrary, he kissed her right back, enthusiastically.  
He held her gently but tightly and something had changed – instead of the overwhelming sexual intensity, she almost felt like she was now offering him safety, peace.  
There was a desperation to his kisses, as if he were seeking a little warmth, a little shelter, before walking into a storm.

Then the lights went on in hallway of her house.  
He turned his head, asking, "Are you gonna be in trouble?" as they heard footsteps coming closer.  
"No, it's fine, not even at my curfew yet".  
Once again he showed his quick reflexes, and when the door opened, they were standing sedately side by side.

Her dad took a step halfway out the door, and the gangly boy subtly shifted his weight, putting his shoulder in front of her.  
It seemed almost unconscious, as if it were a move he made on instinct.  
Her dad narrowed his eyes at them, while her mother peered over his shoulder.

"Are you ok, honey?" her father asked. "What happened? You're back early?"

He looked back and forth between the two teenagers. It didn't look like she'd had any trouble. On the contrary, she looked almost deliriously happy.  
He glared at the young man wondering just what that delinquent had been doing to put THAT look on his daughter's face…

"Who's this?" he asked brusquely.  
The young man straightened up, rolling his shoulders back.  
"I'm Dean Winchester, sir. It's a pleasure to meet you." He nodded politely at her mother, "ma'am. Emily and I met at the fair. We go to school together. When I had to get home, I just wanted to walk her home first, see her safe. Sir."

Emily hid a little smile – she had heard how arrogantly Dean talked to the teachers at school. Apparently, he could turn the charm on and off at will, when talking to the adults around them.

"Hmm, well. I appreciate that. We just got worried, when we heard you, because we had agreed for her to be out for another hour."  
"Yessir, but I had to go home now."

Her father cocked his head and looked Dean up and down.  
"You from a military family, son?"  
"Yessir, my dad was a corporal. The Marines. Echo 2/1."  
"Yeah. It shows. I was in the 3/1, the Lava Dogs... You wanna come in? Sit for a while?"  
"Thank you, but sorry, sir. I have to get home."

He nodded at her parents, turned towards Emily, and, bending down, he pecked her chastely on the cheek while his hand slipped through her long hair like water flowing warmly down her back. She never forgot that feeling.  
She looked at after him as he walked down the steps, disappearing into the darkness.

And the world would never be the same again.

* * *

That Monday at school, he came in a little late.  
There was none of his usual swagger as he walked into the classroom, bag held loosely by his side in one hand, heavy leather coat in the other, almost, but not quite dragging it on the floor.

He dumped his bag without bending. It landed with a clunk. Then he threw the coat over the back of the chair in front of her and slowly sank into the seat, leaning a little forward, elbows on the table, instead of his usual sloppy leaned-back sprawl.

When the teacher turned his back, she leaned over and pressed a warm hand to the back of his shoulder, whispering. "Are you ok?"

She felt his entire body stiffen beneath her hand. He turned his head enough for her to see his jaw muscles bunch up as he hissed between his teeth, "I'm fine" before he slid his shoulder away from her hand.  
A little hurt at his cold reaction, she sat back in her own seat.

He got up and left the room as soon as the bell rang, and for most of the rest of the day she only caught glimpses of him in the distance. He was still looking … off. The way he held himself was different, his steps were shorter, and he didn't spare any of the pretty girls a second glance except for when he sidestepped their attempts to gain physical contact.

In English class she finally got to sit next to him.  
She hardly dared look at him, but when she took the chance and glanced over, he smiled at her and evidently chose to answer her original question again.  
"I'm fine. I'm gonna skip gym. Hope to see you tomorrow?"  
She smiled back and nodded, happiness flowing through her body.

But he didn't come to school Tuesday.

Wednesday, the entire school was abuzz with rumors. At the end of the week, a teacher, finally exasperated, told them that the Winchester family had moved on, the father had gotten a job in another town, so could they please stop spreading crazy stories? Thank you.

Of course, it was ancient history now, but she had never forgotten him completely.

* * *

She never expected to see him again, let alone to see him show up with an FBI badge asking question around town about the children that recently had gone missing.

It had been the talk of the town, been all over the newspapers.  
Kids, primarily from not too well-off families, had simply disappeared.  
At first no one had really done anything, assuming that the kids were run-aways, but as children from the better parts of town started to go missing, suddenly the police were all over the case. Emily felt anger simmer every time she thought about that. A dozen poor kids could go missing and everyone just shrugged, but when a few upper middleclass white kids disappeared, it was suddenly a big deal.  
But now, seeing a ghost from her past getting involved, well, that just threw the whole thing into surrealism. Oh, sure, he was older, as was she, but there was no mistaking that flirting grin or the way he walked through a building.

He didn't seem to recognize her, so she kept it to herself, even as curiosity set in, when she heard the name he was using.

Besides, he was none of her business. She was happily married now, with children of her own, and a job where she made a difference in the world, helping abused children work through their trauma.

She read the headlines on the day when the missing children showed up again. Well, most of them.

One was dead, one was in the hospital in a coma, and one didn't show up with the rest: Tom McQuaid.  
But he might have just skipped off, everybody was saying so: after all, the kid was a bad apple, always in trouble, shoplifting, getting into fights in school, getting detention after detention for not turning in homework, for mouthing off to teachers, for skipping school… he hardly ever showed up for gym class…

The rest of the kids told fanciful tales about what had happened.  
They talked about cages, chains, pain and fear. The only thing they all agreed on was that three tall men, two wearing plaid and one in a trench coat, had come bursting in and had saved them all.

She would have her work cut out for her for the next long while, she expected, as all these children would need help to move through whatever had happened to them.

In cooperation with the school, a temporary office was set up for her, next to the principal's office. That way she could be available to all the children that might need to talk.

Two days later Dean Winchester walked into the front office, this time asking about Tom McQuaid. He was still flashing that badge and that smile – and before the school secretary knew what had happened, she had given him Tom's home address. The dowdy middle-aged spinster spent the rest of the day in a happy, distracted flutter.

Emily, however, followed her old flame out of the building and back to a seedy motel, where she watched him meet with a taller man, who might be the younger brother she barely remembered from back then, and a man in a trench coat, who was there one moment and gone the next.  
She blinked her eyes a few times at that, but he was definitely just…gone.  
Intrigued, she drove off to pick up her youngest daughter from school and drive her to her karate class, determined to come back later and insist on an explanation.

* * *

In the black car parked outside Tom McQuaid's home, an argument was in progress.  
One party insisted that they needed more facts, that they didn't know whether the monsters were all dead, and the other that there had to be at least one more, and since this was the only kid unaccounted for, and since no one was answering the door or the phone in that house, the last monster might be here.

Eventually the last voice won out through sheer stubbornness.  
"Ok, ok," the tall man riding shotgun exclaimed. "But what's our plan?"  
"Whaddyamean?"  
"Dean, we need a plan. We can't just rush in there."  
"Why not? Come on! We need to move it!"  
"Because… because… because it would be embarrassing to rush in only to have to rush out again straight away…"  
Dean rolled his eyes.  
"Ok, here's the plan: We break down the door, we run in yelling, we kill the monsters and we save people! Now, come on!"  
Sam sighed. "The usual plan, in other words."

After a quick run up the path, they drew their guns, got in position on either side of the front door. Dean leaned back to kick the door, but paused, looked over at Sam and said seriously,  
"Remember the plan."  
Sam rolled his eyes. Dean grinned and kicked the door open.

They rushed in. They yelled. And they didn't find any monsters. As such. What they did find was a half-naked boy curled up tight on the floor, sobbing, as a man stood over him with a belt in his hand. The man reeked. He reeked of cheap booze, of sleepless nights, of violence, blood, sweat, and leather, and Dean felt his brain shut down.

The next thing he knew, he was slammed face first against the wall, Sam's body pressing into his back, Sam's voice in his ear, almost chanting, "Dean, stop, stop, Dean, hey, hey, hey."

He stopped struggling against his brother's arms and felt the pressure carefully release.  
When Sam let him turn around, he saw the concern in his eyes.

"Dean, what the hell? You almost killed that man? He's human, Dean, not a monster, just a man."  
"Might be human, still a monster." Dean panted and shrugged Sam's hands away. "Let's get out of here. Get the boy."

Sam half carried the boy as they moved to the car, still shooting worried glances at Dean as they got in and drove back to the motel.

* * *

They had gotten Tom a clean set of too large clothes from Dean's duffel and sent him into the bathroom to clean up a little. The teen was exhausted, quiet and very suspicious. Only flashing their fake badges had calmed him down enough to get him to cooperate. But there would be a fair bit of explaining to do later.

Dean had opened a bottle of beer and was settling down, still refusing to talk at all, and definitely not about what had happened in that house, when there was a knock on the door.

Sam peered out:  
"It's a woman? Dean?"  
Dean moved over to look.  
"I've seen her before; she's a shrink or something." He glanced towards the bathroom. "Might be able to help. Let her in."

The woman walked through the door and marched straight over to Dean.  
Sam lifted his eyebrows: the last couple of times a woman had done that, Dean had gotten his face slapped. Dean seemed to lean back a little as if he'd had the same thought.

This woman didn't raise a hand, though; she just looked into his eyes and said, articulating clearly,  
"Hi. Dean. Winchester. Right? I would like an explanation, and you can begin with why on Earth you thought "Ritchie Blackmore" would be a good false name. I mean, come on – Deep Purple is a well-known band, you know."

The brothers exchanged glances and Dean shrugged.

It took a while. A family sized pizza and a six pack later everyone was up to speed on current – and not so current - events.

Emily subtly and gently drew the story out of Tom while he ate a surprising amount of pizza.  
It turned out that, unlike the other missing kids, Tom had never even been near the monsters. Not the ones the Winchesters had come to hunt, anyway.

He'd been at home. His stepfather had beaten him badly enough that he'd had to stay home for a few days.  
"I was going to go back to school tomorrow, but then he came home fucking wasted –" Tom winced and ducked a little, sending Dean, who sat nearest to him, a careful glance – "Sorry. I meant to say that he was drunk, and well, you saw…"  
The boy blushed and stuffed his mouth with pizza.

Dean opened a beer and ignored the hiss of protest from Sam as he passed it over to Tom.  
The beer, and Emily's patient probing, got the rest of the story out of the kid.

His biological father had skipped out on his mother when she got pregnant at 17, and he only knew him as "that asshole."  
His mother had met someone new and had gotten married when Tom was 7. When he was 11, she had driven her car headlong into a tree. She died on impact. She had been pregnant at the time.

"My stepdad used to a pretty cool guy, but when my mom died, he started to drink. Like, a lot. And…" Tom shrugged. "Well, ya know."  
They did. They had seen it, after all. And the talk turned towards plans for the immediate future.

Sam got out his phone and made a call, putting the phone on speaker as he set it down on the table.

At some point during the ensuing conversation, Emily realized that, to her own surprise, she had agreed to let Tom McQuaid stay with the woman on the phone, who was referred to as Sheriff Jody and who apparently had a tendency to take in strays.

Going back to his home was out of the question: she had readily agreed to that after she had heard his story and had gotten to see the boy's back, the only part of him he was willing to let her see.

She'd politely waited with her back turned, while the Winchester brothers had talked, reassured, iced welts, cleaned wounds and applied dressings. The gigantic Sam was very kind and gentle, while Dean talked to Tom in an oddly gruff way that seemed to work even better to keep the kid calm.  
The gruffness was interspersed with some of the stupidest, most awful, jokes Emily had ever heard; obviously Dean's way of distracting Tom from the unpleasantness of wound management.  
They made Sam smile a little in remembrance of his own childhood and how Dean used to do exactly the same thing as a diversion when Sam had to have an injury tended.

Tom had talked to Sheriff Jody on the phone himself and had cautiously accepted her invitation.  
Now there was just a staggering mountain of paperwork to get through, but that could wait for another day or so. Emily had exchanged numbers with Jody and promised to call her.

It was also agreed that the Winchesters would drive Tom to his new residence the next day. They had tried to convince him to wait a few days to heal up, but he wanted to get out of town fast and said, he'd had worse and wasn't worried about the drive.

Emily felt sick at the realization that she totally believed that claim, because, apart from the fresh damage, there were a lot of scars. A lot. Enough to make Dean grit his teeth and Sam feel his blood-pressure rise. He'd tramped off to the bathroom, gotten a glass of water and a couple of heavy-duty painkillers.  
The boy was too exhausted at that point to resist, and the pills soon sent him off into a hopefully dreamless slumber.

* * *

Going back to the table and the detritus from the impromptu dinner, they sat down and looked at each other, feeling a sudden awkwardness seep in.

Sam looked from Emily to Dean, wondering if he should push Dean, while she was still here. On the other hand, he had just witnessed how elegantly she had handled the conversation with Tom, so maybe she could be of help, drawing some information out of his notoriously closed-mouthed brother.

Leaning his elbows on the table, Sam said quietly,  
"Dean, we still need to talk about why you almost killed that guy. You went totally overboard, as if the Mark was back."

Emily ignored the part about the mark, as she didn't understand what were obviously an inside reference, but she did know the answer Sam was seeking.

"That's because it has happened to you, right?"  
Dean stiffened but didn't respond.  
Emily continued,  
"You know, it wasn't your fault. It's not Tom's fault now, and it wasn't yours then. But talking about it will help, you know."

Dean glared daggers at her, but she leaned forward, hands on his shoulders as if she were going in for a kiss, but instead she kept her eyes on his and repeated firmly,  
"Not your fault. Ever."  
Dean shrugged her off and stormed out of the room.  
They heard the bathroom door slam.

Dean leaned against the sink, awash in a sea of memories.  
He looked up, staring into the mirror.  
He stood there frozen for a long time, before he suddenly slammed his fist into his reflection.  
The sting of the glass slicing his hand open was oddly seductive, the silvery caress of bloody splinters so much less painful than the chaos going on in his head.  
After a while he grabbed a handkerchief from his pocket and wrapped it around his hand, an inefficient bandage, but it would have to do for now.

Then he turned and walked back to the main room.  
He sat down in the chair he had so abruptly abandoned.

Sam shifted uneasily, when Dean merely sat there, staring down at the table.  
"Dean, tell me. I need to know."

Finally Dean lifted his head and said hoarsely:  
"Really? You really want to know how it feels to be whipped with an electric cord until your back is bleeding and you're half unconscious? You want to know about the times he used his belt on me? Or would you rather know about the coat-hanger? Or about any of the other things he could get his hands on? Maybe you want to know about curling up in bed too scared to move and waking up the next morning in the exact same position? OK, then. I'll fucking tell you".

Dean roughly stood and stomped over to the counter where he poured himself a solid glass of whisky. He started back, then turned and, as an afterthought, brought the bottle back with him.  
Sitting down again, he sardonically swung his glass in a half-circle.  
"Gather round, kids; it's story time."

There was quiet for a while; Dean was staring at the glass in his hand. He had come to the realization that he wanted to talk about it. He wanted to put some of this weight on someone else, if only because he couldn't hold it all anymore. He just didn't know where to start.

"How did you know?" He murmured at last glancing at Emily.

"The night at the fair – and Monday at school. Remember? Anyone with eyes could see that something bad had happened."  
"Great, so everyone knew?"  
"I don't think so, not back then – but in my job, you see a lot. It's obvious now, looking back."

Dean sank a little further into his chair, lifted the bottle and stared through the glass.  
"Oh yeah, I remember that night. 'Course I do... Dad was already half drunk when he found us. And when I got back after walking you home, he was knee-deep in the Jack D, nodding off over it..."

Dean shook his head and sipped his whisky.  
"I was tired, it had been a long day, and there was that brawl in the tent. So, I got stupid. I just went to bed, hoping he would go all the way to sleep and forget about everything. He sometimes did. But, yeah, well, he woke me up maybe one or two hours later. With his belt; ya know. It was stupid. I should have just faced it as soon as I got home. I should have hurried more getting there too; instead I gave him time to get even more drunk and, ya know, he sometimes lost control when he got too heavily into the booze."

Dean waved his bottle around as if to demonstrate, then poured himself another glass and rolled it between his hands as he continued, his voice going distant, almost impersonal, as if he were recounting something that had happened to some other person a long time ago.

"I could usually take it. Sometimes I fought back; most of the times I didn't.  
It hurt like hell anyway, and fighting him just made him angrier, more likely to lose it completely, so I tried to just be a man about it.  
That night I didn't even have a chance to think about fighting back.  
He had a knee in my back before I even woke up, and, when he finally moved it, I was past trying to fight. I had learned to block it out at that point, ya know, mostly, but that night I couldn't. I don't know why; I just couldn't get my mind to shut down. And," Dean took a solid mouthful of whisky, feeling the burn as it slid down his throat, a warm weight in his stomach. "it was one of the bad times. The hunt had been bad, he was drunk, I was late… yeah. He really went to town on me. I had black bruises and welts from neck to knees when I rolled out of bed the next day."

He shot a glance at Emily:  
"That's why I had to skip gym on Monday. That pissed me off a little. I liked gym, only thing I was any good at in school anyway. "

Dean stared into the distance for a while, before he continued:  
"At least it was a one-off, not a repeater. That's what I called it in my mind. When he got really pissed at me, he would either send me away, you see, when I got older, he figured out, that I could take a beating, but that it freaked me out, knowing you were home alone with him, Sammy, or he would take his belt to me daily for a week or so, until he was 'Sure the lesson had been learned'  
that was mostly when he thought I had shown him to much 'attitude.'"

Dean did the air quotes with his fingers and poured more whisky.

Sam closed his eyes, thinking about the marks he had seen on Tom's body. The mere thought of a belt coming down on that soreness made him want to whimper.

The thought of Dean going through that as a kid, probably taking a lot of those beatings mainly to make sure Sam was safe, made him at once sad, sorry and furious.

"Why, Dean? You shouldn't have tried to protect me like that. At least when I got older, you should have let me know. We could have left, or I could have helped you or… or… something!"

Dean just shrugged.

Sam knew what Dean was saying; even without hearing the words. He had heard them often enough in the past: Dean's insistence that it was his job to take care of Sam and how important family was to him. So, Sam didn't press any further, not today. He could see that Dean was spent. And this was at least an opening. A promise that they could talk again. If Sam played his cards right.

Dean shook out his shoulders and looked at Emily.  
"I think you'd better go home now. I'm sorry. About everything. And … thanks."  
Even though it obviously cost him something in that moment, he didn't look away from her eyes, and the sincerity was clear in his voice.

Dean stood, feeling more exhausted than if he had been in an eight-hour fight. When Emily got up, moved closer and gently hugged him, he let his body soften into hers, as much as it ever did. There just wasn't very much, that was soft about him.

When they had seen Emily get into her car and she had driven off, Sam looked at Dean and said,  
"Sit down, before you fall down. I want that hand taken care of before we turn in."  
"It's nothing, Sam. I've had worse."  
"I know. Now sit down and let me do this."

Dean sat, the ready compliance hurting Sam in a way he didn't really understand; he just knew that it somehow made everything worse.  
He peeled the dirty cloth away from the wounds, got out the first aid kit, grabbed Dean's wrist and held it out. Then he took a deep breath and tilted the whisky bottle over Dean's torn hand, knowing how much it would sting.  
When Dean had gotten his breath back, Sam picked up the tweezers in order to make sure that all the glass was out the wounds.  
He gritted his teeth as he prepared to hurt his brother some more. It was at that point Dean gave him a brief flicker of light in the ocean of darkness:  
He smiled crookedly through the pain and said quietly, "Knock, knock, Sammy."


End file.
